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Fitting Smaller-Sized Guns on your Ships versus Using Drones
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Thor Kerrigan
Guardians of Asceticism
#1 - 2012-09-24 20:52:23 UTC
You see this a lot in science-fiction; huge battleships deploying series of small guns to fight off enemy fighters. We currently have drones that serve this purpose, so what if we had another mechanic with different pros and cons?

Since the two biggest issues when fighting bigger ships are usually their significantly increased buffer and superior capacitor, I think these should be the main cons of using series of smaller guns.

The concept is similar to rigs: so you fit an OP carrier or dreadnought to fight-off battleships? It could come with a 50%+ reduction of your overall buffer. Since active tanking would remain unaffected, this would also promote more active fits for PVP. Since drones are no longer a must-have on every ship BC/T2 cruiser and up, we can have drones fixed with the ships they were meant for in mind and we can remove them from other classes that have them "for balance".

How would you fit them? Sacrifice a highslot with the new module, place 4 or 8 new guns. Mods are balanced as they modify the guns' damage multiplier. Simple, easy, bikini.

But wait, EVE lore says pods can't possibly manage more than 8/8/8 mods. Okay... Salvaging brain implants from podded capsuleers and using them as mini processors for this new highslot module, anyone? Suddenly selling that slave-set corpse you slavaged on time yeilds 3 billion.
Spurty
#2 - 2012-09-24 21:05:54 UTC
Fairly sure EVE Mk 2 will have infinite guns and like drones MAGIC ammo (it materializes prior to firing)

There are good ships,

And wood ships,

And ships that sail the sea

But the best ships are Spaceships

Built by CCP
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#3 - 2012-09-24 21:10:02 UTC
If you want to fit smaller guns, just do so.

If you choose to fly a bigger ship, you also choose to be exposed to smaller ships. The best way to get around that is to bring friends to deal with those murderous gnats.
Thor Kerrigan
Guardians of Asceticism
#4 - 2012-09-24 21:27:11 UTC
Tippia wrote:
If you want to fit smaller guns, just do so.

If you choose to fly a bigger ship, you also choose to be exposed to smaller ships. The best way to get around that is to bring friends to deal with those murderous gnats.


Currently it is always best to simply fit a web+neut while keeping your regular guns. These mods are also useful against bigger target and thus, it is rarely justified to fit smaller guns with the current system.
Bennet Am
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#5 - 2012-09-24 21:48:56 UTC
I have fit one small gun in an extra slot just to make me feel better vs frigates. I tried tractor beams but meh. 1 little autocannon with some short and long range ammo didn't hurt.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#6 - 2012-09-24 21:56:31 UTC
Thor Kerrigan wrote:
Currently it is always best to simply fit a web+neut while keeping your regular guns. These mods are also useful against bigger target and thus, it is rarely justified to fit smaller guns with the current system.
Good. Sounds like it's working properly already, then.
Planktal
Kenshao Industries
#7 - 2012-09-24 22:00:37 UTC
Like what, add point defense guns via a module on a cap ship in a medium or utility high slot? Like what was in the Dominion trailer?

Good for shooting at enemy drones/missiles.

Here sanity, nice sanity.....THWOOK Got the bastard
Ager Agemo
Rainbow Ponies Incorporated
#8 - 2012-09-24 22:01:58 UTC
Tippia wrote:
If you want to fit smaller guns, just do so.

If you choose to fly a bigger ship, you also choose to be exposed to smaller ships. The best way to get around that is to bring friends to deal with those murderous gnats.


i will just say taht from a game balance standpoint what tippia says is right, its just counterintuitive when you see like they were real life battleships, no one would make a nimitz aircraft carrier without phalanx and rolling sparrows on it, specially given that when ships are so big, you can very easily fit small weapons to deal with small targets without sacrifying utility.


if ships in eve were "realist" frigates with their size could fit antimatter warheads with enough power to obliterate entire cities whole, terrain included, and railguns like those from a rokh could achieve relativistic speeds and hit so hard the hull of the target would undergo nuclear fusion.

And last, laser weapons from ships like an abaddon would be nearly impossible to avoid even on small ships and their damage would be a joke against large targets since stuff like ablative armor would render such weapons useless.


and as you mentioned, chances are given the size and power and fitting options of some ships, you could just link guns to keep the 8/8/8 limit, but alternative their firing times and fit a maelstrom with lets say.... 40 or more small autocannons?
Surfin's PlunderBunny
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#9 - 2012-09-24 22:06:40 UTC
Tippia wrote:
If you want to fit smaller guns, just do so.

If you choose to fly a bigger ship, you also choose to be exposed to smaller ships. The best way to get around that is to bring friends to deal with those murderous gnats.


Yes, that way we won't make fun of you for putting small guns on a BS P

"Little ginger moron" ~David Hasselhoff 

Want to see what Surf is training or how little isk Surf has?  http://eveboard.com/pilot/Surfin%27s_PlunderBunny
Herr Hammer Draken
#10 - 2012-09-24 22:21:57 UTC
When I first signed up for EVE I was hoping this game played out like Traveler does. It does in some ways but is very different in others. In Traveler all the ships have short range self defense weapons like sand casters and short ranged fast tracking lasers to intercept incoming missiles. But In an MMORPG the more fast acting stuff like that on a ship the more lag it puts on the server.

Herr Hammer Draken "The Amarr Prophet"
Thor Kerrigan
Guardians of Asceticism
#11 - 2012-09-24 22:23:56 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Thor Kerrigan wrote:
Currently it is always best to simply fit a web+neut while keeping your regular guns. These mods are also useful against bigger target and thus, it is rarely justified to fit smaller guns with the current system.
Good. Sounds like it's working properly already, then.


Indeed. This specific mechanic does not have any bugs either. Did I make it sound like I was trying to fix something? My bad. It's more about improving the game.

That's because ship survivability is actually increased when fitting specifically to kill smaller targets. The leftover pg and cpu allows those ships to fit even greater buffer or active tanks. It may make ships setups 20-30% more effective against smaller targets but at the expense of making them 50% or more at risk to the bigger fish.

Also, being properly balanced, you should never go over your max DPS having a full set of proper guns + drones. The more deadly to a specific group you would be, the dealier other groups would be against you.
Doddy
Excidium.
#12 - 2012-09-24 22:26:35 UTC
Imagine bs with dozens of point defence turrets for vs frigs/drones and interceptor gridfire vs missiles and defender missile batteries for long range point defence.. Now imagine 250 of those bs and what happens to the server.
Thor Kerrigan
Guardians of Asceticism
#13 - 2012-09-24 22:30:44 UTC
Doddy wrote:
Imagine bs with dozens of point defence turrets for vs frigs/drones and interceptor gridfire vs missiles and defender missile batteries for long range point defence.. Now imagine 250 of those bs and what happens to the server.


I Imagine each module using 4-8 guns, 4-8 times the ammo requirement for these etc. etc. before you undock.

When you actually use it, the server simply sees this new module as a single turret. What exactly is the problem?
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#14 - 2012-09-24 23:01:35 UTC  |  Edited by: Tippia
Thor Kerrigan wrote:
Indeed. This specific mechanic does not have any bugs either. Did I make it sound like I was trying to fix something? My bad. It's more about improving the game.
The thing is that it's not an improvement — it's breaking a (reasonably) clear implementation of paper-scissors-rock balancing. Bigger ships are supposed to be utterly horrid against smaller ones; they're supposed to have decreased survivability (at least in the sense of “the best defence is a good offence”) against small ships.

Trying to reverse that is not a good idea unless you do it all the way, which in this case would mean that those smaller ships are given guns that will pretty much instagib the larger targets… This whole idea operates on the logic that bigger is better, but that logic does not apply to EVE, and it does so for a very good reason: to keep those smaller ships on the field and to make sure the bigger ships do not like it when they're around.

What you're describing isn't a problem. It's actually a solution to the problem your suggestion is going to create. If you do find it troublesome to have the support ships around to take care of smaller ships, then the game already offers you the solution to fit the guns to match, but this obviously makes the ship much worse, and this too is by design — a very good design, at that.
Reicine Ceer
State War Academy
Caldari State
#15 - 2012-09-24 23:15:19 UTC
Point-defence systems are always a big fan-favourite; im sure we're all more than aware of the delicious anti-missile/frigate fire that the Battlestar Galactica used in the updated tv series recently.

From an EVE perspective, the thing that immediately popped into my (albeit usually vacuous) head was the Golem, and other Marauder-class ships. They're supposed to be "behind enemy lines" style craft that're sent on long missions etc (ok so theyre used as L4 whores, but still), giving something like a point-defence system and sacrificing drone capacity (or a rig slot?) would totally add to the lore side of the ships and give them something really interesting to do.

Oh, and actually a full-on defence-grid themed ship would be sweet too; sort of like the tank of a HIC but no weaponry or speed to talk of, just the ability to direct a flak screen for protecting bigger ships.

In fact, sacrificing my entire drone bay and a portion of the cargohold (large portion ofc) for hte ability to launch such a craft from the ship i am piloting would be suh-wweeeeeeeet.
Thor Kerrigan
Guardians of Asceticism
#16 - 2012-09-24 23:16:36 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Thor Kerrigan wrote:
Indeed. This specific mechanic does not have any bugs either. Did I make it sound like I was trying to fix something? My bad. It's more about improving the game.
The thing is that it's not an improvement — it's breaking a (reasonably) clear implementation of paper-scissors-rock balancing. Bigger ships are supposed to be utterly horrid against smaller ones; they're supposed to have decreased survivability (at least in the sense of “the best defence is a good offence”) against small ships.

Trying to reverse that is not a good idea unless you do it all the way, which in this case would mean that those smaller ships are given guns that will pretty much instagib the larger targets… This whole idea operates on the logic that bigger is better, but that logic does not apply to EVE, and it does so for a very good reason: to keep those smaller ships on the field and to make sure the bigger ships do not like it when they're around.

What you're describing isn't a problem. It's actually a solution to the problem your suggestion is going to create. If you do find it troublesome to have the support ships around to take care of smaller ships, then the game already offers you the solution to fit the guns to match, but this obviously makes the ship much worse, and this too is by design — a very good design, at that.


So removing drones from certain ships and replacing their DPS by smaller guns, while ALSO making those bigger ships easier to alpha is not an idea to consider? Without any attributes being actually set in stone, you seem convinced of it's outcome regardless.

At the same time, You can improve drones without it suddendly being a game-wide change. Gallente ships are a prime example of ships who need drones to complement their blasters, but boosting drones would currently boost all races equally.

And on top of that, we could finally have a valid reason to pod people.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#17 - 2012-09-24 23:23:32 UTC
Thor Kerrigan wrote:
So removing drones from certain ships and replacing their DPS by smaller guns, while ALSO making those bigger ships easier to alpha is not an idea to consider?
Pretty much. Again, if you want that, the game already offers it to you: it's called flying a smaller ship to match the smaller ships coming after you. If you absolutely have to fly a larger ship, then the game offers you a solution as well: just fit it poorly.

If you want to break the “bigger is vulnerable to smaller” chain, you have to do it all the way and end up with frigates that fire siege weaponry and DDDs.
Thor Kerrigan
Guardians of Asceticism
#18 - 2012-09-24 23:26:31 UTC
Tippia wrote:

If you want to break the “bigger is vulnerable to smaller” chain, you have to do it all the way and end up with frigates that fire siege weaponry and DDDs.


Or, you know, torpedo launchers on frigates.
Tippia
Sunshine and Lollipops
#19 - 2012-09-24 23:30:33 UTC
Thor Kerrigan wrote:
Or, you know, torpedo launchers on frigates.
Not big enough. Also, not common enough.
Thor Kerrigan
Guardians of Asceticism
#20 - 2012-09-24 23:39:18 UTC
Tippia wrote:
Thor Kerrigan wrote:
Or, you know, torpedo launchers on frigates.
Not big enough. Also, not common enough.


If that is true, we should make them bigger and more common or troll threads on the forums? Idea
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